Open source evolution sim Thrive adds graphics improvements and more planet customization

Giving evolution a little bit more visual flair, Thrive is a scientific open source sim about surviving and growing as a tiny creature. A new release has arrived bringing with it some pretty big changes to how it looks, along with even more customization of your run.

What is it? You take control of an organism on an alien planet, starting off in the microbe stage. The game world and other creatures all evolve and change as you do. It's all quite science-focused too, although not too overloading. It's seriously cool.

In the v0.9.0 update out now they've added in procedural terrain to make the world look a bit more alive, with a greater variety of minerals appearing in future updates that are planned. Various other graphical improvements have been added to the game to improve the atmosphere too like more particle effects for currents, the point was to make it all feel more like "a drop of water in a ginormous ocean as opposed to just being an extremely flat environment".

Tons more is in this one like a new save system, more planet customization, an upgrade to Godot 4.5, an upgraded physics engine and lots more.

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It's still free and open source but you can buy it from stores to support the development. It has Native Linux support and Valve rated it Steam Deck Playable / SteamOS Compatible.